Date: 1715
"The Poet is in the right to say, that the Mind is a Part of Man: for it is, indeed, the informing, but not an assisting Part, as a Mariner in a Ship, and a Coachman in his Box, as the Academicks believ'd."
preview | full record— Lucretius Carus, Titus (94 B.C.- ca. 49 B.C.); Creech, Thomas (1659-1700)
Date: 1718
"For from most Bodies, Dick, You know,/ Some little Bits ask Leave to flow; / And, as thro' these Canals They roll, / Bring up a Sample of the Whole. / Like Footmen running before Coaches, / To tell the Inn, what Lord approaches."
preview | full record— Prior, Matthew (1664-1721)
Date: 1719
"It is as impossible as needless, to set down the innumerable Crowd of Thoughts that whirl'd through that great Thorowfair of the Brain, the Memory, in this Night's Time."
preview | full record— Defoe, Daniel (1660?-1731)
Date: January, 1730
"Reason and prudence sit not at the helm, in such a mind, to guide and steer the vessel of its body; but wild fancy and imagination, irregular lust and passion, drive it on the destructive rocks of folly, vice and presumption."
preview | full record— Anonymous
Date: 1730
"Fancy, fair Mistress of the Poet's Mind, / For ever changing, yet, for ever kind; / Soft, o'er his Dreams, her formful Radiance shed, / And his rapt Soul thro' Heaven's thin Purlieus led; / Seated beside the Star-invading Dame, / Whose Steeds, Wind-footed, paw'd the lambent Flame, / High, as a W...
preview | full record— Hill, Aaron (1685-1750)
Date: 1731
"And therefore it [the soul] is not present with it only as a Mariner with a Ship, that is, meerly Locally, or knowingly and unpassionately present, they still continuing two distinct Things; but it is vitally united to it, and passionately present with it. And therefore when the Body is hurt, th...
preview | full record— Cudworth, Ralph (1617-1688)
Date: 1732
"Malice, and Lust, voracious Birds of Prey, / That out-soar Reason, and our Wishes sway; / Desires' wild Seas, on which the wise are tost, / By Pilot Indolence, are safely crost."
preview | full record— Mitchell, Joseph (c. 1684-1738)
Date: 1767
"Man in this world, Sir, may be compared to a hackney-coach upon a stand; continually subject to be drawn by his unruly appetites, on one foolish jaunt or another; but you will say, if his appetites are horses, which as it were drag him along, reason is the coachman to rule those horses--But, Sir...
preview | full record— Bickerstaff, Isaac (b. 1733, d. after 1808)
Date: 1773
"Strong Passions draw, like Horses that are strong, / The Body-Coach of Flesh and Blood along; / While subtle Reason, with each Rein in Hand, / Sits on the Box, and has them at Command; / Rais'd up aloft, to see and to be seen, / Judges the Track, and guides the gay Machine."
preview | full record— Byrom, John (1692-1763)
Date: 1773
"But was it made for nothing else beside / Passions to draw, and Reason to be Guide? / Was so much Art employ'd to drag and drive / Nothing within the Vehicle alive? / No seated Mind that claims the moving Pew, / Master of Passions, and of Reason too?"
preview | full record— Byrom, John (1692-1763)